Sad Sad day
I must have read hundreds of his articles over the years.
Veteran technology writer Guy Kewney died this morning. He had been suffering from bowel and liver cancer for over a year. Guy had been a force in UK tech journalism UK since the 1960s, writing for magazines including Electronics Weekly, Computing, and New Scientist. He was perhaps most famously associated with Personal …
He was most famously associated with being impresonated by Guy Goma. Seriously, more people know that than about his work with PCW. Which is a shame because that was an excellent magazine - largely thanks to him - and is what got me interested enough to persue a career in the IT industry.
RIP.
I remember paging eagerly through the magazine to find Guy's column. Whatever else might be in there, I knew he would have something important and interesting to say, he would say it efficiently and wittily, and his writing would be backed up by impeccable research and long experience.
Very sad to hear this.
I was still at school in the early 80's, just getting interested in the ZX81s and VIC20s and suchlike. Even then, I was always drawn to Guy Kewney's articles, regardless of what he was discussing; from the serious articles in PC World to the somewhat lighter ones in "Computer & Video Games". Definitely influenced me a lot and always spurred me on to dig deeper and look at stuff that I would probably have ignored otherwise.
Definitely a hero.
Unfortunately, I wasn't aware that he had been ill - only just recently, I realised that I hadn't seen anything by him for a while.
I never met Guy, but like many others enjoyed his writing. I had the opportunity to share a couple of discussions with him and agree that he had an excellent knowledge of technology and a great way of making his point. There is no question that he will be sorely missed.
Requiescat in pace
Guy was an excellent journalist who will be sadly missed. Like many others have said here it was PCW that kept my early interest in IT, but even in the last few years I was always fascinated hearing him talk about IT issues on BBC News. My sincerest condolences to his wife and daughters.
Like most older IT people Guy helped us migrate from punch cards and paper tape to the new world of the PC via the ZX80, Spectrum and BBC micro.
As an avid reader of PCW before the WWW was invented I enjoyed his writing even if at times I totally disagreed with his analysis.
Guy will be greatly missed because he actually knew what he was writing about.
I was interviewed twice by Guy in 2008 for an article he was writing on cloud computing. It was weird being interviewed by someone whose articles in Personal Computer World had been so instrumental in my decision to pursue a career in computing in the 1980s.
He never lost his insight into not just technology, but also the impact that it has on society.
Guy was probably the man who helped me get into computers (or at least understand what I was getting into) the most.. He had an amazing knack of taking some quite complicated equipment or concepts and explaining them in a way that most people with a minimum of technical knowledge could understand. He managed to do this without patronising those who know more. A rare talent indeed.
I remember being interviewed by him when we were launching a new piece of kit a few years back. I don't think I've ever felt so in awe of any tech journalist as I did of Guy. He asked a couple of very insightful questions which had us floored for a moment until I replied with a decidedly un-company line response. I may have stunned my colleagues, but at least I got a laugh from Guy. He'll certainly be missed.
Thank you Guy for all the very informational articles over the years. You have been one of the best writers in this field ever. Too many writers cover up their own lack of knowledge with verbosity and jargon - you never did that, just straight, understandable, and very good reading at the same time.